Despite the Mac reputation as being more secure because of Apple’s tight control over its vertically integrated ecosystem, Mac-specific malware and advanced persistent attacks (APTs) against human rights groups is on the rise, cautions Citizen Lab...

You must remember the long and tedious battle between Federal Bureau of Investigation and iPhone manufacturer firm Apple over unlocking of an iPhone owned by the terrorist involved in the San Bernardino mass shooting around two years back. In that particular case, Apple flatly refused to provide feds access to the data and the FBI had to pay more than a million dollar to an Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite to unlock the shooter’s iPhone 5c.

It seems like the feds won’t need to plead Apple to unlock its phones anymore because of the breakthrough findings of Cellebrite. As per the Israeli firm, its new hacking tool would unlock just about any iPhone available in the market that runs on iOS 5 to iOS 11 including the newbie iPhone X. It is worth noting that Cellebrite develops digital forensics tools and programs for cell phones and its most popular product is the Universal Forensic Extraction Device or UFED that helps investigators extract all the passwords and data stored in a mobile phone.

You must remember the long and tedious battle between Federal Bureau of Investigation and iPhone manufacturer firm Apple over unlocking of an iPhone owned by the terrorist involved in the San Bernardino mass shooting around two years back. In that particular case, Apple flatly refused to provide feds access to the data and the FBI had to pay more than a million dollar to an Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite to unlock the shooter’s iPhone 5c.

It seems like the feds won’t need to plead Apple to unlock its phones anymore because of the breakthrough findings of Cellebrite. As per the Israeli firm, its new hacking tool would unlock just about any iPhone available in the market that runs on iOS 5 to iOS 11 including the newbie iPhone X. It is worth noting that Cellebrite develops digital forensics tools and programs for cell phones and its most popular product is the Universal Forensic Extraction Device or UFED that helps investigators extract all the passwords and data stored in a mobile phone.

The fix, previously reserved for newer Macs, is now available on older versions of macOS..

Apple has rolled out a security fix to older Macs in an effort to mitigate the risk from a vulnerability in modern chips.

The technology giant on Tuesday released a fix for Meltdown, a flaw that can allow an attacker to read protected kernel memory, for the latest versions of macOS Sierra (10.12.6), and OS X El Capitan (10.11.6).

Also: Intel: Stop firmware patching until further notice

macOS Sierra and its predecessor OS X El Capitan were not initially patched, with Apple opting to release a supplemental security update only for macOS 10.13.2 on January 8.

Some criticized the company for effectively forcing customers to update their entire operating system in order to receive patches. Although updating systems is one of the most important ways to protect against security vulnerabilities, many do not update their systems for fear of breaking legacy software.

The fix, previously reserved for newer Macs, is now available on older versions of macOS..

Apple has rolled out a security fix to older Macs in an effort to mitigate the risk from a vulnerability in modern chips.

The technology giant on Tuesday released a fix for Meltdown, a flaw that can allow an attacker to read protected kernel memory, for the latest versions of macOS Sierra (10.12.6), and OS X El Capitan (10.11.6).

Also: Intel: Stop firmware patching until further notice

macOS Sierra and its predecessor OS X El Capitan were not initially patched, with Apple opting to release a supplemental security update only for macOS 10.13.2 on January 8.

Some criticized the company for effectively forcing customers to update their entire operating system in order to receive patches. Although updating systems is one of the most important ways to protect against security vulnerabilities, many do not update their systems for fear of breaking legacy software.

A software developer discovered a bug that lets anyone send you a malicious link on iMessage that can crash your phone. Because the bug lies in the link preview, it can freeze the iMessage app without you even clicking on it.Called "chaiOS," the bug affects phones running iOS 10 or later.

A bug called "chaiOS" is wreaking havoc on iPhones.

According to a report out Wednesday from BuzzFeed's Nicole Nguyen, the security vulnerability is capable of freezing or crashing your phone if you're sent a specific link through iMessage.

According to BuzzFeed, the bug was originally discovered by software developer Abraham Masri, who posted his findings to Github. Masri said his intentions were good — he had alerted Apple to the bug ahead of time and said he only posted it publicly to get Apple's attention.

Masri's original post has since been taken down, but the link may still be floating around, according to BuzzFeed.

Because of the way links work in iMessage — the app generates previews of links before you click on them — you can be affected by chaiOS without even clicking on the link itself. The link preview contains the bug, and it can freeze iMessage all on its own. The bug is capable of crashing iMessage altogether, and in some cases, forcing you to restore your phone to factory settings.

The bug affects phones running iOS 10 up to at least iOS 11.2.5 beta 5, according to BuzzFeed.

A software developer discovered a bug that lets anyone send you a malicious link on iMessage that can crash your phone. Because the bug lies in the link preview, it can freeze the iMessage app without you even clicking on it.Called "chaiOS," the bug affects phones running iOS 10 or later.

A bug called "chaiOS" is wreaking havoc on iPhones.

According to a report out Wednesday from BuzzFeed's Nicole Nguyen, the security vulnerability is capable of freezing or crashing your phone if you're sent a specific link through iMessage.

According to BuzzFeed, the bug was originally discovered by software developer Abraham Masri, who posted his findings to Github. Masri said his intentions were good — he had alerted Apple to the bug ahead of time and said he only posted it publicly to get Apple's attention.

Masri's original post has since been taken down, but the link may still be floating around, according to BuzzFeed.

Because of the way links work in iMessage — the app generates previews of links before you click on them — you can be affected by chaiOS without even clicking on the link itself. The link preview contains the bug, and it can freeze iMessage all on its own. The bug is capable of crashing iMessage altogether, and in some cases, forcing you to restore your phone to factory settings.

The bug affects phones running iOS 10 up to at least iOS 11.2.5 beta 5, according to BuzzFeed.

Apple delivered its latest batch of security updates for iOS and macOS this week.

On iDevices, the update was a full-on point release, bumping the iOS version from 11.3 to 11.3.1 and making it easy to check whether you’ve installed the update correctly: just go to Settings → General → Software Update and see what version number you’re currently on.

For Mac users, the patch is dubbed simply Security Update 2018-001, so your macOS version stays at 10.13.4 after you’ve installed it.

Safari was bumped from 11 to 11.1 in this update – note that if you’re still on El Capitan or Sierra (OS X 10.11.6 and macOS 10.12.6 respectively), where there isn’t a 2018-001 update, you’ll need to update Safari separately.

Just two critical vulnerabilities were patched this time, both of them in the WebKit web rendering code in iOS and macOS.

Apple delivered its latest batch of security updates for iOS and macOS this week.

On iDevices, the update was a full-on point release, bumping the iOS version from 11.3 to 11.3.1 and making it easy to check whether you’ve installed the update correctly: just go to Settings → General → Software Update and see what version number you’re currently on.

For Mac users, the patch is dubbed simply Security Update 2018-001, so your macOS version stays at 10.13.4 after you’ve installed it.

Safari was bumped from 11 to 11.1 in this update – note that if you’re still on El Capitan or Sierra (OS X 10.11.6 and macOS 10.12.6 respectively), where there isn’t a 2018-001 update, you’ll need to update Safari separately.

Just two critical vulnerabilities were patched this time, both of them in the WebKit web rendering code in iOS and macOS.

Apple has confirmed that it is working on a bug fix that will stop apps like Messages from crashing when they attempt to display a Unicode symbol representing a letter from the south Indian language of Telugu.

The Unicode-based bug has been exploited by juvenile pranksters, who posted app-crashing messages on Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, or even changed their screenname to one which contained the symbol.

The symbol, which I won’t repeat here for fear of crashing readers’ apps (trust me.. while writing this article I managed to bork my browser once at twice), can cause iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and even Apple TV devices to endlessly reboot themselves if received in a notification. If you’re curious there’s a good write-up about it on Mozilla engineer Manish Goregaokar’s blog.

One security researcher demonstrated that it was possible to make macOS network applications crash by creating a Wi-Fi hotspot which included the offending symbol.

Apple has confirmed that it is working on a bug fix that will stop apps like Messages from crashing when they attempt to display a Unicode symbol representing a letter from the south Indian language of Telugu.

The Unicode-based bug has been exploited by juvenile pranksters, who posted app-crashing messages on Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, or even changed their screenname to one which contained the symbol.

The symbol, which I won’t repeat here for fear of crashing readers’ apps (trust me.. while writing this article I managed to bork my browser once at twice), can cause iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches and even Apple TV devices to endlessly reboot themselves if received in a notification. If you’re curious there’s a good write-up about it on Mozilla engineer Manish Goregaokar’s blog.

One security researcher demonstrated that it was possible to make macOS network applications crash by creating a Wi-Fi hotspot which included the offending symbol.

It was an integral part of iOS known as “iBoot” – the section of code which controls the security of your iPhone or iPad as it starts up.

So it’s an important part of iOS?

Very important and highly sensitive. The secure boot firmware ensures that iOS will only run apps digitally signed by Apple, and checks that the operating system has not been tampered with by a hacker.

Does that make this leak interesting to hackers?

Yes, and to other parties (I’m looking at you principally law enforcement agencies) who might be interested in finding vulnerabilities that could be exploited to help them compromise and unlock iOS devices.

Beware! A new bug can crash iOS and macOS with a single text messageRESIST THE TEMPTATION TO SEND THIS TEXT BOMB TO ANYONE.

Be careful what you click on.

Abraham Masri, a Twitter user with the rather wonderful handle of @cheesecakeufo, has shared publicly a malicious link that is capable of crashing iOS and macOS when received through Apple's Messages app.

The link, which I'm only going to reproduce here as an image, points to a GitHub page.

Clicking on the link can cause your Messages application to crash on iOS and Mac devices, and you may find other peculiar behaviour occurs such as being returned to your lock screen.

It turns out that there's some pretty funky-looking code on that webpage.

Something about the so-called ChaiOS bug's code gives your Apple device a brainstorm. Ashamed about the mess it gets itself in, Messages decides the least embarrassing thing to do is to crash.

Nasty. But, thankfully, more of a nuisance than something that will lead to data being stolen from your computer or a malicious hacker being able to access your files.

Readers with long memories will recall that Apple users have been bedevilled by text bomb vulnerabilities like this in the past.

Beware! A new bug can crash iOS and macOS with a single text messageRESIST THE TEMPTATION TO SEND THIS TEXT BOMB TO ANYONE.

Be careful what you click on.

Abraham Masri, a Twitter user with the rather wonderful handle of @cheesecakeufo, has shared publicly a malicious link that is capable of crashing iOS and macOS when received through Apple's Messages app.

The link, which I'm only going to reproduce here as an image, points to a GitHub page.

Clicking on the link can cause your Messages application to crash on iOS and Mac devices, and you may find other peculiar behaviour occurs such as being returned to your lock screen.

It turns out that there's some pretty funky-looking code on that webpage.

Something about the so-called ChaiOS bug's code gives your Apple device a brainstorm. Ashamed about the mess it gets itself in, Messages decides the least embarrassing thing to do is to crash.

Nasty. But, thankfully, more of a nuisance than something that will lead to data being stolen from your computer or a malicious hacker being able to access your files.

Readers with long memories will recall that Apple users have been bedevilled by text bomb vulnerabilities like this in the past.

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